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Broke Wife, Big City
Like a
red-headed biological child
By Aprill Brandon
“Look at that red hair!”
That sentence, those five words, are my very first memory of my son.
Well, that and a giant blue screen pressed up against my face and the
sensation that on the other side of the screen a hyena was burrowing
through my lower intestines.
A drunk hyena.
Who hated me.
Passionately.
Ah, the miracle of birth.
But back to my point. Those words were said by my doctor, the wielder
of the C-section knife, the very first person to see my child in the
flesh. And he said it for a very good reason. That hair was indeed just
screaming to be looked at. Screaming as loudly as the little, angry,
bunched-up person it was attached to.
From day one…hell, minute one, my child was a bright, flaming redhead.
If a pumpkin spice latte mated with a standard red fire engine, the
resulting offspring would be my son’s head.
We had a card-carrying member of the ginger team on our hands. And the
sheer amount of it! He came out looking like a redheaded Albert
Einstein after an all-night rave in a static factory.
Now, at the time, I was still too stunned that I had given birth to an
actual human instead of a giant wad of the 200 cheeseburgers I had
eaten over the past nine months to fully realize the implications of
this. Because no matter how many ultrasound pictures you look at, it’s
still hard to wrap your mind around the idea that there’s a baby inside
you. Even as you are holding your living, breathing, squirming baby,
there is still a lingering feeling of “Well, just where the hell did
you come from?” as you look down at their face.
But as the shock and awe of his birth (and the effect of those
miraculous pain pills that made me taste yellow and see underwear
gnomes) wore off, I started noticing that his hair was a Big Deal.
Everyone was commenting on it. All the doctors. All the nurses (even
the ones who had been in the maternity ward since before Moses was
born). Even the other mothers. And as he transformed from scrunchy old
man newborn to full-fledged adorable babyhood, the reactions only got
bigger.
Nothing can prepare you for having a natural redhead. Despite the huge
market for parenting books, somebody has yet to write “What to Expect
When You’re Expected is Unexpectedly Redheaded” or “Ginger
Preparedness: Dealing With Redheads in a Towheaded World.” It’s like
having a celebrity baby, if the baby was also a unicorn-slash-fairy
hybrid.
Walking down the street, people not only stop and exclaim “Look at that
red hair!” on a regular basis, but will also rub his head for good
luck, like he’s some kind of living, breathing Blarney Stone.
One stranger stopped me and gave me a 20-minute history lesson on how
my son is descended from Vikings, the original redheads.
Another stranger, a grandfather of a ginger grandson, forced me to look
at 43 cellphone pictures of said grandson and told me I better be
careful with Riker since redheads are going extinct and as such, he is
incredibly precious cargo. And then gave me a parting look that seemed
to say “I don’t really trust you with this task at all.”
Two, not one, but two, strangers have told me on separate occasions
that both the mother and the father have to have the recessive gene for
red hair in order to produce a ginger offspring and since my husband
and I both do possess these magical redheaded genes, we are obligated
to have as many children as possible. To which I replied with
hysterical laughter followed by maniacal sobbing.
There have also been others who have wanted a detailed genealogy of my
family’s roots (both of the hair and historical varieties) and my
husband’s family. To which I always joke, “well, my husband’s a quarter
ginger on his father’s side,” to which they are not amused. Not to
mention the people who look at my natural brunette hair with its fake
honey highlights and then look down at my son and then back to me and
then internally debate whether they should call the cops because some
ginger family somewhere is obviously missing its baby.
And that’s not even counting the countless people who don’t directly
address us but still gasp, poke their friend and whisper loudly “Look
at that red hair!”
All this has given me a new appreciation for the trials and
tribulations natural redheads have to deal with on a daily basis.
Because while gingers may be rare and thus their unique hue considered
a gift, it can also be a curse.
Which is why when strangers ask me if Riker has a temper to match his
hair, I reply with “wouldn’t you if the world treated you as their own
personal Blarney Stone?”
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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